Israeli Pilots Battle Birds For Air Space

April 06, 1986|By Jonathan Broder, Chicago Tribune.

JERUSALEM — ``It happened during a routine training flight,`` the young Israeli pilot recalled. ``I was flying at about 3,000 feet when I suddenly heard a loud explosion and felt a strong blow on my neck. I completely blacked out.``

The pilot regained consciousness a few seconds later to find his A-4 Skyhawk fighter hurtling out of control, the wind roaring through his shattered canopy and his neck covered with blood.

``I didn`t know whether it was mine,`` he said. ``I looked down. The floor was littered with feathers and torn flesh. I realized that I had collided with a bird.``

It was a 20-pound pelican, and when it struck the jet, which was moving at 600 miles per hour, it hit the windshield with the force of 100 tons, tests later proved.

The pilot managed to land his plane safely, but others in the Israeli air force have not been so lucky. There have been hundreds of collisions between birds and Israeli warplanes, killing some pilots, seriously injuring others and causing millions of dollars of damage in crashes, cracked wings, punctured fuselages, shattered canopies and destroyed engines, military officials say.

The air force keeps detailed figures secret, but flight officers admit that since the 1973 Mideast War, pelicans, storks and raptors--birds of prey

--have downed and damaged more Israeli warplanes than all the Arab air forces combined.

Aircraft accidents caused by birds are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they as frequent as in Israel. The distinction is created by the country`s unique political and geographical situation.

A tiny country whose relations with its neighbors are tense at best, Israel has one of the world`s biggest air forces and little airspace in which to train. That space also happens to be along the main route for millions of birds seeking the shortest route around the Mediterranean Sea as they migrate between Europe, Western Asia and Africa every spring and fall.

``The result is a birdwatcher`s paradise and pilot`s nightmare,`` said Yossi Leshem, head of the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature Raptor Information Center.

To minimize collisions and maximize training time, the Israeli air force began working closely with Leshem and other birdwatchers in 1983 on a major ornithological study that attempted to define the exact routes, altitudes and dates when the birds would be entering Israeli skies. Last week, Leshem handed over the study to the air force, where it has become as indispensable for Israeli pilots as their identification charts for enemy MiGs.

The Israeli army`s respect for wildlife goes back to the 1967 war, when a nature-loving armored commander led his tanks into the Sinai against the Egyptians and took them dozens of miles out of their way to avoid harming a well-known bird sanctuary. The air force now maintains the tradition with posters at all bases showing a fighter plane and steppe eagle and a caption reading ``Take Care, We Share the Air.``

Even before the posters went up, the air force had figured out that most of the jet-bird collisions were happening along two north-south corridors over the Israeli coastal plain and the Jordan Rift Valley. The air force declared those areas ``Bird Plagued Zones,`` or BPZs, and ordered pilots flying there to stay above 3,000 feet.

``We adapted flights as much as possible, but we couldn`t reach a stage where the air force wouldn`t be hurt but also wouldn`t fly. There was an obvious need for new solutions,`` said Maj. Uri, head of flight safety in the Israeli air force. Military censorship prohibits the publication of his last name.

When Leshem began his study for the air force, he noted that the BPZs conformed with the main migration routes of storks, pelicans, eagles and buzzards, which use the warm air currents rising from the cliffs below to glide all the way down to Africa.

``Then we checked the dates of all the collisions between 1972 and 1982, and we learned that almost all of them happened either in March, April and May during the spring migration or in September and October during the fall migration,`` Leshem said.

Since then, Leshem, using radar, observation aircraft, a computer and a brigade of birdwatchers stationed at 40 locations throughout the country, has been able to refine his study, establishing the exact days when swarms of birds will pass through Israeli airspace, in what numbers and at what altitudes.

``For example, last May we knew that between the third and the ninth of the month, about 620,000 honey buzzards would be passing over Israel between 2,000 and 4,000 feet. The pilots were able to continue training until we informed them a big flock was on the way,`` Leshem said.

The result, according to air force officials, has been the total elimination of serious jet-bird accidents and a 60 percent reduction in collisions over the past three years.

Now, at the height of the spring migration, Leshem has positioned birdwatchers in the Egyptian city of Suez, advancing the perimeter of his early warning system hundreds of miles to the southwest. Next fall, he will place his birdwatchers in Turkey.

``They can give us as much as eight days early warning,`` he said.

The cooperation has helped Israeli birdwatchers as much as the air force. Leshem said he has been able to halt the air force`s low-flying helicopter flights over desert areas where the noise has frightened eagles away from their eggs.

In the course of the study, Israeli ornithologists also have been able to identify and protect the 475 species of birds flying through Israel. The publication of this information has persuaded the International Council for Bird Preservation, the world`s leading bird-protection group, to hold its next convention in Eilat in March, 1987.